RAM

[FUBAR]

Recently purchased a PC game that has a minimum requirement of 2GB of RAM, so I have upgraded the 2x 512mb DDR 400 to 2 x 1GB DDR 400 (only have 2 RAM slots)

Also upgraded the onboard graphics (a mighty 64mb) to a 512mb graphics card (min req. is 256mb)

The game now runs but is 'laggy'.

I'm hoping that if I was to install 2x 2GB of RAM (or higher if I can find it)it will run happier. My main question is that as DDR RAM in the higher capacities is harder to find, am I able to put DDR2 RAM in instead of the DDR? (I'm not all that IT clued up but am able to install RAM )

[Cerberus90]

no, you won't be able to install DDR2. The two are non-interchangable. The slots have the notches in different places.

Also, upgrading the RAM probably won't make the game run that much better.

Also, unless you've got a 64bit operating system, which I'd guess you've probably not, you won't be able to use all 4GiB of the RAM. Probably only about 3GiB of it.


What Game is it?

And what graphics card did you buy?

The amount of memory on a graphics card doesn't determine its performance.

Edited by Cerberus90 on Friday 2nd April 11:44

[Man-At-Arms]

Cerberus90 said:

What Game is it?

and what OS ?

if Vista, then thats probably using all your rams before the game starts !

[scorp]

Man-At-Arms said:

Cerberus90 said:

What Game is it?

and what OS ?

if Vista, then thats probably using all your rams before the game starts !

Vista runs fine with 2gb of RAM, most of its usage is cache which get purged as soon as anything else comes along and needs it.

I'd look more at your graphics card upgrade as the cause of your lag. You don't have all the graphics settings ramped to max do you ? What game is it ?

Edited by scorp on Friday 2nd April 12:52

[FUBAR]

Thanks for your replies.

The game is Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Running XP with a Pentium 4 2.8ghz processor (game says min req in Core 2 Duo 2mhz so guessing this could have an impact?)

ETA: Graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce 8400

Edited by FUBAR on Friday 2nd April 15:41

[jayfish]

did you unistall the old driver set for the graphis card beofre installing the new one?

TBH there are multiple things this could be, what CPU you have, the Motherboard and it's RAM capabilities, excess background processes etc etc.

Grab a copy of sisoft sandra and run a scan, It'll give you a good indication of which component is the bottleneck.

[FUBAR]

jayfish said:

did you unistall the old driver set for the graphis card beofre installing the new one?

err, no. Can I do that retrospectively?

[bonsai]

BF:BC2 is a beast of a game. Like you identified, your CPU is not great.

Even though the Core 2 Duo 2Ghz might sounds like less than your current chip, it is in fact more than twice as powerful.

Have you tried reducing all the graphics settings to their lowest values, testing it, then increasing them slightly if you don't have any stutter?

[scorp]

FUBAR said:

jayfish said:

did you unistall the old driver set for the graphis card beofre installing the new one?

err, no. Can I do that retrospectively?

Yup.

[jayfish]

FUBAR said:

jayfish said:

did you unistall the old driver set for the graphis card beofre installing the new one?

err, no. Can I do that retrospectively?

yeah no problems, uninstall the video card drivers, reboot and install the new ones.
And rather then use the disc supplied go to www.guru3d.com and dowload the newest whql certified ones (there will probably be newer one but beta drivers, these are generally stable but not recommended whilst you are troubleshooting)

edit: sorry was being lazy, letest XP 32 bit certified drivers are here here

Edited by jayfish on Friday 2nd April 22:42

[Simon Says]

That old single core CPU and DDR1 ram are what's throttling that game its too greedy as said already Fubar you need a more modern machine,stop splashing out on the car and update your PC

[FUBAR]

You're right Simon. I'm just chasing my tail with this. Fed up with getting killed due to lag. Off to get a new PC in the morning (the R888s can wait another month)